Research into emotion, crime and anti-social behaviour has lacked psychological
input and rarely considered the multi-directional associations between emotion, crime
and morality. We present a study analysing audio recordings of two community
groups meeting in a deprived inner city area with high rates of crime, using
conversation analytic and discursive psychological techniques to conduct an affectivetextual
analysis that draws out aspects of participants’ moral reasoning and identifies
its emotional dimensions. Moral reasoning around crime and ASB took three forms
(invoking moral categories, developing moral hierarchies, invoking vulnerable
others), and was bound up with a wide range of emotional enactments and emotion
displays. Findings are discussed in relation to contemporary government policy and
possible future research.

Description:

This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in British Journal of Criminology following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azq029

Sponsor:

This work was funded by the ESRC under grant RES-000-22-2434 “Emotion and
Crime: a mixed-methods approach”.